This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 11-065252, filed Mar. 11, 1999, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a playback apparatus and method for playing back a voice data file, and a recording medium for recording a playback program causing a computer to perform an operation for playing back the voice data file recorded therein.
Conventionally, there is known a playback apparatus in which a voice input from a microphone is converted into digital data; voice compression processing is applied; a voice data file is recorded in a recording medium; the voice data file recorded in this recording medium is read out; expansion processing is applied; the voice data is converted into analog voice information; and a voice is output from a speaker or the like.
Here, in a voice data file, there is a case that the file has a long time interval such as some tens of minutes. In order to enhance data accessibility of such relatively long file, the data having a data address corresponding to a playback time (counter information) is required.
To solve this, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-124362, the corresponding table is created at the header portion of each track of each data file. That is, in a playback apparatus disclosed in this specification, a management file includes data on the start and stop addresses of each data file, and the data having the data address corresponding to the playback time (counter information) is included in every track of each data file.
However, in the case of a jump to an arbitrary time position of a file, in the playback apparatus disclosed in the above specification, it is required to check each of the corresponding tables created at the header portion of each track and calculate a time, which is time consumable and disables fast access.
The present invention has been achieved in view of the foregoing circumstance. It is an object of the present invention to provide a playback apparatus and method in which fast data access is feasible in the case of a jump to an arbitrary time position of a file.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a playback apparatus for playing back a voice data file, wherein the voice data file comprises a plurality of blocks and a file header being management information on the voice data file, the blocks each contain a plurality of sectors and a block header being management information on the block, and the sectors contain voice data and a sector header being management information on the sector, the apparatus comprising:
calculation means for calculating a playback position from a start position of the voice data file by each block;
management file creation means for creating a management file for managing a playback position from a start position of the voice data file of each block; and
storage means for storing the management file.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording medium having a playback program for playing back a voice data file recorded therein, the voice data file containing a plurality of blocks and a file header being management information on the voice data file, the blocks each containing a plurality of sectors and a block header being management information on the block, the sectors each containing voice data and a sector header being management information of the sector, the playback program causing a computer to perform operations for:
calculating the playback position from the start position of the voice data file by each block;
creating a management file for managing the playback time from the start position of the voice file of each block; and
storing the management file in a storage medium for storing voice data.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for playing back a playback apparatus for playing back a voice data file, the voice data file containing a plurality of blocks and a file header being management information on the voice data file, the blocks each containing a plurality of sectors and a block header being management information on the block; the sectors each containing voice data and a sector header being management information on the sector, the method comprising the steps of:
calculating the playback position from the start position of the voice data file by each block;
creating a management file for managing the playback position from the start position of the voice data file in each block; and
storing the management file in a storage medium for storing voice data.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.